My interview experience at garden city
We used a lawyer only to prepare our documents and prepare us for the interview. We weren't able to afford to have him come with us so we went by ourselves.
Our interview was at 8am on Thurs 11/29. We arrived at Garden City the previous night and stayed at a hotel so that we could arrive at 7am when the opened. We actually got there at 6:45am and there were already about 30 people on line outside. They began letting us in at 7am and had us go through a security checkpoint. Then we went to the room to the left and window 1 where they scanned the interview letter. We were asked to have a seat in the red chairs in the back of the waiting room. About 10 minutes later a person came and took about 6 couples including us upstairs where again we were told to go in another waiting room and sit in red chairs.
It was about 7:45 when the DAO came to get us. He was a very pleasant and professional man in his 50s. He introduced himself and led us to his office a couple of hallways away. The first thing he did was swear us in before we sat down. Our lawyer had prepared us very well for the interview, probably a little too well. We had approx. 275 pages of copies of documentation for the officer alone. And we had a already sent in about 60 pages with our initial filing. The DAO said that he didn't need to see any of what we brought and that what we had originally sent was enough. He also joked that we must think that he gets paid very well to do his job and no one brings in that much documentation. He then asked for my wife's driver's license and my passports( I recently renewed my passport so he needed the original and the current one ). He then went through the famous "no" questions. He asked if we were living in the same place and what the address is. We told him that we are and gave him the address. Then he asked us "Did you hear that?" referring to a couple of his co-workers speaking in the hallway. We didn't hear it and he told us that someone had just come in with a birth certificate that had Julia Roberts and Ray Charles as their parents. We laughed about how stupid people can be and I told him about a recent news article about a guy tried to open a bank account with a 1 million dollar bill. He said you wouldn't believe how many people come in with such obviously bogus marriages. He then quickly asked my wife if I eat me. She said yes without hesitation. This surprised him since I am from South India and am Hindu. So he asked me "You eat meat?" with astonishment. I told him that I do eat meat including beef because I work in the food business and had to know the tastes of many foods. He then asked who does the cooking. My wife said that she eats out for lunch and then I bring home food from the restaurant at night. He then asked my wife if she likes Indian food and she said yes. He then went on to tell her how the more south you go in India the more people eat with their hands. I mentioned that we also eat on banana leaves. He said that's right and so when you're done with the meal you don't wash the dishes you just throw them out. I said it's very eco-friendly. He then said that he would approve us and he stamped the passport. He told us about the conditional residence and how to remove it. He also reminded us that we would not be reminded by anyone to do it. Then he told us that we should go down stairs and wait about an hour to collect the passport. On the way out I asked him if my security check is cleared and he said "Yes, you're fine." My wife then asked him for his name since she didn't hear it when he first introduced himself and he pointed out his name on the wall next to his door.
We went downstairs and waited about half an hour. A woman said my name over a speaker. She was at the last window of the set of windows we had gone to when we arrived. She asked me for identification and gave me my passport. She reviewed with me the conditional status once again. She said "Congratulations, Welcome to America." She also said that the stamp on the passport would act as a green card if I wanted to travel outside the country even that same day. I just thanked her and we left.
